Morphological number, semantic number and bare nouns

This paper compares the properties of bare nouns in a non-plural marking French Lexifier Creole to those in plural marking languages in order to better understand the role played by number, both semantic and morphological, in determining the meaning of bare nouns. A parameter is proposed that distinguishes languages according to whether or not the structure of their nominal expressions obligatorily includes a functional projection for Number. The presence of NumP is taken to enforce the realization of a kind into its instances, offering a link between the morpho-structure of bare nouns and their interpretation that obviates the needs for a semantic parameterization.